Back to Football: Regular Season Results

My regular season average 'Gut' accuracy is 64%, below the accuracy of the FootballLocks.com picks ('Favorites'), but better than just picking the team with more wins ('Ranks'), and certainly better than picking the teams that I like, or 'Ideal' picks. Had I bet money, based on my calculation, I would have made a 12% ROI.

Next year, the plan is to go with the 'Favorites' for week 2, and it could be a good idea to use 'Ranks' for Week 1. Without that Week 2 dip, my season average is 65%. Speaking with other football fans also gives me ways to evaluate teams that still allow me to pay minimal attention to the actual games.

Back to Football: Week Seventeen Shenanigans

I made at least one stupid pick this week, thinking that Atlanta could defeat the Panthers, but that goes to not paying attention to intricacies of the game, like players. And though I had a suspicion that Kansas City could defeat the Bolts, I went with San Diego anyway and turned out to be wrong.

However, nothing was more controversial this week than an incident in the NFC North showdown between the Packers and Lions. Ndamukong Suh (pronounced Endam-u-kong Soo) knocked Aaron Rodgers (pronounced Eh-ron Ra-jers) to the ground during a play, then took some steps backwards, which happened to land his cleated feets on the sort-of injured calves of Mr. Rodgers.

The NFL suspended Suh for the Wildcard Playoff game against the Cowboys because their interpretation of the evidence is that he intentionally stepped on Rodgers' calf. Suh also has a history of not-so-unintentionally striking or hurting other players, which doesn't help his case.

However, after a few viewings of the incident at a slowed speed, I'm still willing to give the benefit of the doubt. On one hand, if his past offenses were similar - with him not looking at the victim - then maybe he did it on purpose, but I don't have that evidence in front of me. One could argue that Rodger's reaction indicated that he thought it was on purpose, but adrenaline runs high in football and being stepped on with cleats would make anyone mad, regardless of intent.

At normal speed, I don't really think that this incident is a big deal. I hope Suh wins his appeal, so he can help defeat the Cowboys next week. If not, well, I still hope the Lions can win.

Back to Football: Week Sixteen Unexpected Upsets

This was a bad week for me, starting with a Thursday Night Mistake. On Saturday, I went in to my local bar to get some advice from waitron N, who actually pays attention to football things. He convinced me to change my picks to go with San Diego and Indianapolis as additional upsets, but I wasn't convinced about Houston or Cincinnati. I nearly picked Kansas City too, but the change never got recorded in my spreadsheet. I must have gotten cold feed without remembering, because on Sunday, I thought I had picked them. It is the difference between 44% and 38% this week, so I'm going with the spreadsheet, unless someone presses me on it.

Hoo doggies was that San Francisco, San Diego game frustrating. Though the looks on Harbaugh and Kaepernick's faces - what do you mean we don't get to win this game by playing crappy football and getting lucky? - were pretty amusing in the end. But in during the game, I started wondering if N wasn't messing with me, cuz he knows that I'm keeping track and my all-too-valuable pride was on the line.  Anyway, it was alright - the Bolts came back and won in overtime. Now I'm wondering if SF should really be my second favorite team, but everything could change with a new coach next year.

Cut to Monday night, pretend other games didn't happen (WTF, Colts?) and we have N's "feeling" that Cincinnati would win. Listening to this game on the radio while en route to Little Rock, then watching the end at my motel, it seems like one of the most memorable games in Cincinnati Bengals history - certainly recent history, or this season, I have no idea because I don't really pay attention. It's always more exciting when your team needs the win to stay in the playoffs. It's a lot more special when you play a team that already clinched a spot in the playoffs, and was about to secure a first round bye. Make it a high scoring game and toss in some uncomfortable weather, and fans will always remember "where they were when..." So this week, N's feelings got 63% to my 38/44%. Paying attention FTW, I guess.

Back to Football: Week Fourteen/Fifteen Redux

I have not abandoned the NFL this year, I just got busy with... things?

I was very sad to learn that the Packers lost on Sunday to the perhaps-once-great Buffalo Bills, who allegedly had or have the best defense in the league. Perhaps that was just for Fantasy on that day, because NFL.com is ranking their Defense at 5th, and perhaps against the Packer's 6th ranked Offense, it was meant to be.

I must take solace in the fact that, even with a team in the Wild Card spot and not the Division Champions, at least I'm not a Houston Texans fan. The delusion that they could beat the Colts on Sunday was so strong around here that even I held out hope while I still picked IND to win. I might be a romantic, but I'm not dumb. Well, at least when I'm paying attention.

Speaking of not paying attention, I naively thought that the Cowboys would lose to the Eagles, unaware of the injuries that rendered them a mere shadow of the once NFC East Championship team they might have been. Perhaps in week 16, I will not make so many careless mistakes, but that actually requires work, so possibly not.

Back to Football: Week Fifteen The Most Boring Game

Alternate Title: Wherein I Learned that I Never Wrote about the Cardinals Before

I decided to watch the Cardinals vs. Rams game on Thursday, and was once again glad that I splurged for a better cable package, since the game was on the NFL Network. I got it on in time for the last few minutes of the first half, muted for the half-time crap, and then settled in to watch THE MOST BORING, DEPRESSING HALF OF FOOTBALL IMAGINABLE.

The Defensive game was pretty good, I guess, but who the hell cares? I picked Arizona because, even with Drew Stanton in to replace whatshisface, they were better than the Rams. And as the half went on, with the Rams going three and out, Cardinals going three and out, Rams going three and out, Cardinals getting a first down before going three and out, Rams going three and out, Cardinals getting a first down or two before a field goal, Rams going three and out, over and over, Drew Stanton is on the ground and Mr. Third String is warming up.

Could it be? The adequate back-up that could take Arizona, limping, to the Super Bowl, was, himself, limping? Yes, it was all too true. Limp, the Cardinals did, holding back the Rams in the Touchdown-less game so boring that I actually cheered when the Rams completed a passing play for a first down. Perhaps it is the last game Arizona wins this year, or perhaps San Francisco is a really bad team. For never was there a tale of more setback than of the Cardinals and their Quarterback.

Back to Football: Week Thirteen Already?

I guess that's how goes when you forget to post for Week Twelve, but it was a good one for me with 80% correct. Thursday was good too, with 2 for 3 - only Dallas let me down.

Green Bay hosts New England this weekend, and it has me cautiously pumped. The Packers are playing more like their 2011 selves,  but the Pats are 9 and 2 for a reason. We'll see.

Back to Football: Week Eleven Pittsburgh Down at the Half

Oh yeah, I can get another solid-lock prediction wrong this week, no problem, cuz my ONE not-even-a-real-upset was right. [swear word] YOU, Pittsburgh. WTH, win this game!

You do realize that you're playing the TITANs, right? The team that no one can remember exists. UGH!

Back to Football: Week Eleven WHY DENVER WHY?

After a week of boasting and a confidence-restoring Miami win over the Bills, The NFL gods deigned that I must be smited, and did not allow me success. Kansas City was the only team that came though for me until the Packers in the late games, who seem to have decided to go back to their 2011 playbook and blow everyone out of the water again.

No, literally, it was only Kansas City and my old boyfriend, Alex Smith, that came to my rescue today. Even Denver lost to a not-good team, and Cincinnati, Houston, Chicago, and San Francisco decided to be good today. Really, I just can't even.

In other news, I nerded it up this morning by mapping out the NFL Divisions, then making a fun little PowerPoint of them for my own amusement. It's not completely done being converted to a Google Slide, but almost.

Back to Football: Week Ten Predatory Birds and Big Cats

 VS. 

WHO WILL WIN?

Philadelphia Eagles. The Philadelphia Eagles will peck and scratch the hell out of those poor Carolina Panthers, laughing all the way. 

Back to Football: Week Ten LOL I Was Worried

If the scores progress like they did in the first half, we will have a score of 210-0, Packers.

Quarter	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Bears	0	0	0	0
Packers	14	28	56	112

I'm cool with that.

Back to Football: Week Ten In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb

I didn't really trust Cincinnati, but I went with them for Thursday anyway, incorrectly. In a way, though, I was still right, but it won't count, of course. I'm now 9&1 for TNF.

I had a similar feeling about my picks for the rest of the week, and after I started watching around the end of the first quarter for most games, things looked bleak. My risk on Miami didn't pan out, Pittsburgh decided to take the week off, and New Orleans could not defeat the 49ers - though they did go into overtime. At first, it looked like I made a mistake with Kansas City and Baltimore was going to screw up, but then they won, as did Dallas and, unsurprisingly, Atlanta, which put me at 50% for the early games - much better than expected.

I fared even better on the late games, as did the Cardinals, going 8&1 for the first time since over a decade before the current NFL even existed. Oakland did not achieve their first win against Denver, and Seattle finally played like themselves and defeated the Giants. I do hope that the Packers are well rested this week and can defeat Jay Cutler and his pack of Bears, but the fate of NFL teams are not decided by me. They're just picked, every week, with 65% accuracy.

Back to Football: Week Nine Packers Bye Whatever

Eli Manning looks like a ten year old in a football uniform, but apparently, he's playing with a bunch of rookies.

Earlier tonight, I heard a guy at the taco place that I go to say that Indianapolis was playing and would lose to the Giants. I laughed, inside, because I knew he was wrong, and boy was he.

77% this week, and had I known that the Vikings starting QB was back, I might have been 84%.

Back to Football: Week Eight [censored]

WHAT THE BLEEPING BLEEP?

I figured that, since Cleveland gave Jacksonville their only win and that even the worst teams win at least one game, usually, I'd take a risk and pick Oakland for Sunday. It was a mistake, of course, since Cleveland was at home, a better team, and probably fired up from the loss. Oops, oh well.

I had my doubts about Green Bay in New Orleans, of course, but I never imagined THAT bloodbath. I also would NOT have wanted to be on that team after a certain point that night. Aaron Rodgers looked PISSED every time the camera pointed at him, and that kind of attitude is not very encouraging. I have serious doubts about the defense. I mean, I know that black is slimming, but it doesn't make the players invisble or without matter, yet they slipped by the Packers as if they were. Very, very sad, all around. Well, except for Saints fans, I guess.

As for Philly v. ARI and Pittsburgh v. IND, those were toss-ups, and I went the wrong way, oh well. But by gawd, I never imagined a Dallas loss, IN DALLAS, to AAAARRRGGGGGG I'm to angry to even identify the team. Just imagine copious amounts of swear words here.

So I went from the highest high at the end of the early games to sort of the lowest low, ending up with a modest, painfully average, for me, 10 for 15 record on Week 8. I suppose that it was a case of counting my chickens before they hatched.

Back to Football: Week Eight and the Late Games

At the bar, as the scores shook out, I started to see a shocking, pride inducing trend. The teams that I picked, from Detroit and Denver in the early, early games, to Miami, New England, and Buffalo* as more obvious choices, to the still obvious, but tentatively picked Seahawks, Kansas City, Houston, and Bengals, to the gamble on Minnesota, every single team that I picked was winning or had won. After a while, after the Texans won, marking a 100% improvement over last year's season with a total of 4 wins, it was down to Tampa Bay and Minnesota, the latter of which pulled the game into overtime. A Minnesota defender forced and/or capitalized on a Tampa Bay fumble around the 20 yard line and ran in for a touchdown within the first few minutes.

I sat back in glee, watching the replay over and over. The ball popping loose, the purple guy grabbing it and running, running running, and passing by the orange pylon on the inside. I'll watch it again, right now. You can too. I've never been happier for a Viking win in my life! Ten NFL games played and finished this week, ten games successfully picked by me. I picked Indianapolis, Philadelphia, and Oakland to win the afternoon games, Green Bay for Sunday Night, and Dallas for Monday. I don't even care if I'm wrong on all of them (unlikely, but not impossible - the Cowboys could flub it and lose at home, maybe) at this point.

Back to Football: Week Eight From the Bar

5 to go in the third and the Texans are up by 24. Seattle and Carolina are tied at 6, but the rest of the scores are a mystery. FOX - at least this affiliate - put the captions right on top of where the scores display and they insist on listing key stats for the players. *I so don't care*.

Tennessee did get a touchdown, then failed their attempt  for two. Miami is up by 18 over JAX, and Houston completed a 49 yard field goal to go back to a three touchdown lead.

New England has 45 points, and I cannot imagine Chicago having anywhere near that many. The other scores that have seen are also going my way, but none of the early games are final, and I think Cinci is about to disappoint.

Back to Football: Week Eight Sunday Morning

Thursday's game was an easy pick, making me 8 for 8 there. A game in London meant that the first game today started at 8:30 Central, or 6:30 Pacific. Fortunately, the teams playing were from the Eastern and Central time zones, so no one on the West Coast cared?

It was a much more competitive game than I thought it would be, since some player dubbed Megatron on Detroit was not starting against Atlanta. Late in the 4th, it was Atlanta up by 2, but checking the scores just now, I was very, very happy to see DET in bold and the word Final under the score. They won by a single point, and I am 2 for 2 in games played so far.

I'm off to get coffee and breakfast. I just hope Cincinnati and Seattle don't disappoint me again this week.

Back to Football: Week Seven Sunday Night

Prediction: Now that Peyton Manning has tied Fav-re's record, a freak, but somehow legal hit will cause him to suffer a broken leg and he will have to be put down.

I was premature about my description of the Giants interception to touchdown against the Cowboys in the last post. The Broncos interception to touchdown plays just now were like buttah - like two sticks of buttah in the form of football plays.

Back to Football: Week Seven Sunday

Sadly, but perhaps rightly so, karma struck Seattle and gave them their overdue loss on a clearly faulty call (or did it? I have no idea right now, and it's not like I can just look these things up, sheesh). I can't tell you with certainty that the call was wrong, since I did not see it. I did hear plenty of analysis of it from the CBS Football guys, however, while I was doing things on my work computer. I mean, if the football guys say it was wrong, it was probably wrong.

There were so many disappointments this week, but it's a bad week to be from a [geographic region] that starts with the letter C. Chicago and Cleveland really let me down with their losses to Miami and Jacksonville (seriously, Jacksonville?). Chicago is really the more disappointing though - they were at home. I can't be that upset about Cincinnati this week though, because that pick was a real gamble, and perhaps just wishful thinking. Fortunately, one of the teams from a C [location] lost to the Packers.

Seattle and three of the four C losses today leave me at five for nine on the early Sunday games. I've picked Kansas City, Arizona, and Dallas for the late games, and I don't think the Niners have a chance at 5,280 feet.

I took a break from working out my work issues (you have no idea) to work on this post and watch some NFC East action with Dallas and the Giants. I picked Dallas, and they're kind of letting me down. I watched a surreal interception caused by a receiver that fell down as the ball was rainbowing through the air. It was almost in slow motion as the lone defender grabbed the ball and started running the other way. The touchdown that followed was, as Linda Richman would say, like buttah. 

Commercials came on and I was transfixed by a song and image of a large man going to Akron and his old high school. Soon, it was revealed to be Lebron James and I'm still having major feels about this commercial. 

Sh*t, dude, that is some heavy stuff. It also encouraged me to start a weight training regimen again.

But as the subject says, back to football: Dallas came back from their turnover and are going to finish up the half with a tie, instead of down by seven. But really, I should get back to my work stuff, get a meal of sorts, and do more work things.

Back to Football: Week Seven Early

So now, I am seven for seven on Thursday picks. I watched the previews on nfl.com today and it didn't really help me make any decisions. I did decide to pick Pittsburgh over Houston, however, for a few reasons:

• Pittsburgh is at home
• Pittsburgh has lost enough games to make them pissed off enough to win
• I can't really trust Houston to win with any level of consistency yet

My Monday predictions are four for seven this year, so Houston has some hope there. Well, except that I've been four for four since week 3. 

Back to Football: Week Six Can't Miss Play

They play that I really wanted to see is over at SB Nation. It's beautiful, and it turns out to be a Dan Marino trick. That has GOT to sting.

Unfortunately, the young killers weren't hungry enough and the Giants are playing like sh*t tonight, so the best I can hope for this week is 77% correct.

Back to Football: Week Six Highlights

I was out at my local coffee/breakfast/bar place and they were playing the football games - Denver vs NY Jets. I ended up talking to my 4th crazy of the week, an NY Giants fan who knew a lot about football betting. I would have asked him for help understanding how it all works, but I decided not to because I didn't really want to talk to him THAT much. He did explain that the "over-under" was the total points scored in a game, and he predicted an over-under of 56 for the Monday night game.

On the TV, it showed the scores from the other games, and I was disappointed to see GB 20, MIA 24 with less than 2 minutes to go. I coped with the loss and moved on to other topics, like how the Cowboys suck. We could definitely all agree on that, except for the bartender, who is also the establishment's resident frat-boy, so, it's okay. So talking talking talking - or rather me listen to this guy babble and stuff, and then on the TV, I see GB 27 (and highlighted), MIA 24 FINAL!

FINAL(!)

My left fist goes up in triumph, I probably said "Packers!" or "Yes, Packers won!" and my companion even had a little drinking accident as a reaction to my reaction. It was a happy moment.

Well, eventually, I go home and go onto NFL.com to see other scores, and aside from Pittsburgh (stick a fork in them, they're done) losing, and a CAR-CIN tie (and who can predict those? don't even bother), my gut picks have been spot-on - 83%. So I sat back and casually kept an eye on the NFL.com site and my Facebook feed, noticing their links to videos of great plays that week.

Eventually, I decided to watch one of the "can't miss" plays because it was the winning touchdown pass from the Packers. It was sweet, but also pretty boring. I imagine that watching it in real time, however, would have been an incredible rush - similar to a hit from an injectable painkiller or some other instant high. I was surprised that I didn't see Packer fans in the stands crying. However, the play itself was pretty cut-and-dry, and when you know the outcome, it is a lot less exciting.

Anyway, after the video finishes, it moved on to another can't-miss play, which was some touchdown play of the Raiders. I kept it going, because it could be interesting, but it wasn't. Then, THEN, it goes back to the Packers, but the score is 17-17, and I realize that they're going to play some Miami score - the nerve! So I was like, "don't show me that sh*t! I don't wanna watch no anti-Packers scoring sh*t, NFL.com!" and then I said "sh*t" a few more times, and stopped the video and sh*t.

My afternoon game picks are as follows:

• SD over OAK, for obvious reasons, but with 2 minutes left to go, OAK is up*. 
• ARI over WAS, for obvious reasons. ARI is up, but there is a while to go in the 4th yet.
• CHI over ATL because NFC South teams haven't really proven themselves, especially Atlanta. So far, I look to be right. 
• SEA over DAL because the young hungry killer predator birds will eff you up every time. SEA is up by 3, with less than 5 to go in the 4th, but DAL has the ball. We shall wait it out.

* but in the time it took me to write this, and 4 seconds in football time, SD got a touchdown and is up by 3 I mean 2? things were weird on the website. Maybe there was a flag on the extra point kick, whatever. 

Back to Football: Week Six Interlude

Well, sadly, I was right about the Thursday game, making me 6 for 6 on Thursday night this year. I started watching at the end of the first quarter when the score was 17-0. The quarter ended with another IND touchdown, but then Houston showed up to the game and played some beautiful football. It was a real shame that they lost, and I hope their season doesn't end up like it did last year.

At least they scored more than 17 points in this game.

Back to Football: Week Six Already

Just dropping in to note that I'm worried about Houston. They started out well last year, like this year, but then ended up at 2&14. I picked Indianapolis for tomorrow's game, but again, I kind of home I'm wrong, for Watt's sake.

Back to Football: Week Five Early

This week, when telling a Texans-fan co-worker that I predicted a Dallas win this weekend, he looked up 'NFL spreads' on Google to see what the internets had to say. The source he found corroborated my thought, but also indicated that Dallas has not won 4 games in a row in either a long long time, or ever. I'm more inclined to believe the former. ANYWAY, that makes a possible case for Houston, but I'm still picking Dallas.

The more important thing for me in that interaction was seeing how easy it was to find out which team was the actual favorite. When I got home, I started Googling and found some incomprehensible Vegas Odds site, tried to read the Wikipedia articles about sports betting and understand things, and then decided that I liked the site Foot Bullocks Football Locks as a determination of which team is the real 'Favorite'. It seems that my 'Gut' picks align pretty well with that real Favorite so far.

I made updates to my spreadsheet for the first 5 weeks, then realized that I should preserve my 'Ranks' picking. It is still interesting to see if having more wins in a season is a good predictor of winning that week, and when it is better. I'm also adding columns to the spreadsheet to accommodate other people's picks, if anyone wants to try their luck on any given week.

The Favorite certainly prevailed last night, to the chagrin of Minnesota fans. My favorite post on this thread had to be 'punt on the first down' as a possible strategy for Minnesota to come back from 28-0, Packers.

Not to mention, the memes.

I have to say, however, I worry that the Packers only won because the Vikings were just so bad. Had Minnesota been playing with their first string QB, or maybe even second string, I'm not sure they would have won. Perhaps I'm just displaying the normal Packer-fan pessimism we all have though.

Here's to Sunday. For the record, here are my picks: 

Early Games

Late & Monday

CHI: The favorite is Carolina, but I've got this feeling, you see.   TEN: Tennessee, Cleveland, Tennessee, Cleveland. I don't care and they both suck. I settled on the Favorite. PHI: St. Louis isn't that good.  NYG: Knowing how bad Atlanta was last year.... NO: Yeah, The Bucs beat the Steelers in some random freak of nature, but really now.  DAL: It's Dallas at home, and they clobbered New Orleans last week. I'll be happy if this pick is wrong, and yeah, Dallas and four-in-a-row, blah blah, but I have a feeling.  DET: Lions at home, and they're on top of the NFC North.  BAL:  The Vashda Nerada of the NFL will strike again. PIT: Losing to a $h*t team two weeks in a row only happens to other $h*t teams.  ARI: Everyone says Denver, and I know that Arizona flashes and burns out frequently, but I've got another feeling.

KC: #*(< the 49ers, seriously. Seriously. And the 49ers are actually my second favorite team. Now, it would be one thing if this team beat the Packers in the playoffs every effing year and then went on to win the Super Bowl, but they don't. They choke like losers. I also like the idea of my boyfriend playing his old team and beating them.  SD: It's the Jets. CIN: New England sucked something awful on Monday. I don't think they have it in them anymore.  SEA: Young, hungry killers against Washington?

Back to Football: Week Four Return

What's up Kansas City! My long lost, estranged boyfriend threw 13 touchdown passes yesterday to beat the apparently pathetic Patriots 41-14 last night.

I've updated my potential earning calculations to only pay out $4 for successfully picking the 'favorite' to win and $7 to pick the 'upset.' After running my numbers, I realized that bookies actually have to make money on taking bets. These new numbers, when applied to the 2012 season, create the following numbers.

0%	-$2	-13%	-$211	9%	$144	-20%	-$325.
Favorite		Upset		Gut		Ideal

Always betting on the 'Favorite' for every game would nearly mean you break even. Betting on the 'Upset' would cost you $211, and betting on teams I liked would have been the worst of all. The next addition to my calculation will probably be a column where I define the 'odds' and increase the payout for a successful 'Upset' pick by that number. Perhaps it could be the difference in wins between the teams.

I also added some conditional formatting to indicate which teams were Good, Bad, and Mediocre in 2013. This should help me make better picks, unless it doesn't. 

Back to Football: Week Four Later

Football watching with other people was good. We had tons of food and could talk about the teams.

Here is the table for this week with some annotations about what is in each cell and some of the calculations going on. In addition to what goes on here, the numbers are also captured in two different charts that track the average accuracy of each type of pick and potential earnings over an entire season. If a team appears in the 'Win' column on a particular week, that information is logged in the 'Master' sheet for the appropriate week so the 'V Ws' and 'H Ws' columns display the updated Wins for those teams next week. Ties will be considered to be a half win and half loss and will have to be entered manually as needed.

• Ranks picks the Home team (H) if their Wins (Ws) are greater than or equal to those of the Visitor (V).
• Gut is subjective - based on who I think (or just feel, in my gut) will win.
• Ideal is determined by the ordering of teams in the 'Master' sheet based on how much I "like" the team.

ROI for Weeks 1-3 on my Gut picks.		13 games were played this week and 47 games played in Weeks 1-3.										This is where I do the betting calculation. The percent is the ROI for this week only.
	$53.00	47	Correct			7		8		9		-$1	$18	$30	$46
	19%	13	Percent			54%		62%		69%		-1%	23%	38%	59%
	V	H	Win	V Ws	H Ws	Ranks		Gut		Ideal		Fav. $	Upset $	Gut $	Ideal $
	NYG	WAS	NYG	1	1	WAS	0	NYG	1	NYG	1	-$6	$10	$10	$10
	CAR	BAL	BAL	2	2	BAL	1	CAR	0	CAR	0	$5	-$6	-$6	-$6
	GB	CHI	GB	1	2	CHI	0	GB	1	GB	1	-$6	$10	$10	$10
	BUF	HOU	HOU	2	2	HOU	1	HOU	1	HOU	1	$5	-$6	$5	$5
	TEN	IND	IND	1	1	IND	1	IND	1	IND	1	$5	-$6	$5	$5
	DET	NYJ	DET	2	1	DET	1	DET	1	DET	1	$5	-$6	$5	$5
	MIA	OAK	MIA	1	0	MIA	1	OAK	0	OAK	0	$5	-$6	-$6	-$6
	TB	PIT	TB	0	2	PIT	0	PIT	0	TB	1	-$6	$10	-$6	$10
	JAX	SD	SD	0	2	SD	1	SD	1	SD	1	$5	-$6	$5	$5
	ATL	MIN	MIN	2	1	ATL	0	ATL	0	MIN	1	-$6	$10	-$6	$10
	PHI	SF	SF	3	1	PHI	0	SF	1	SF	1	-$6	$10	$10	$10
	NO	DAL	DAL	1	2	DAL	1	NO	0	NO	0	$5	-$6	-$6	-$6
	NE	KC	KC	2	1	NE	0	KC	1	NE	0	-$6	$10	$10	-$6
The numbers indicate how many wins the Visitor and Home teams have prior to these games, as logged in the 'Master' sheet. This identifies the favorite, but early in the season, it's not real reliable. The colors identify the team as 'Good', 'Mediocre', or 'Bad'.						If the team identified in these columns matches the team in the Win column, a 1 is marked in the adjacent numbered column. The Correct number is the sum of that numbered column. That is divided by the number of games played this week to get the Percent.

Regardless of whether Kansas City wins tomorrow, I'll be more than 50% correct this week. Here is a detailed break-down of my decisions for Gut picks and my reaction to the results.

• The Giants annihilated that Washington team on Thursday, which put a smile on my face, certainly. Despite their similar record and that Home Field advantage, the Giants are just a better team. 
• I originally picked Baltimore for their game with Carolina, but decided to make what turned out to be the wrong decision for my Gut pick. I'm definitely sure that I was underestimating Baltimore. The Vashda Nerada of the NFL deserves a little more respect. 
• Early in the week, I had a crisis of faith about the Packer game in Chicago, especially after our loss to Detroit. However, I made the decision that regardless of other factors, I'm just going with Green Bay for my pick. I'd rather be completely happy about a Packer win and completely sad about their loss. 
• The Texans got it done in a nailbiter, thank goodness. I believe that Buffalo's early wins were to weaker teams and gave the advantage to Houston. 
• I seem to remember that the Colts blew some other team out of the water last week and the Titans got blown out of the water themselves last week, so IND was an easy and obvious choice. 
• Detroit beat the Packers, who beat the Jets, ergo, Detroit would beat the Jets. This came to pass. 
• So Oakland sucks - everyone knows this - but Miami also sucks these days. I figured that, being at the Coliseum, Oakland had a good chance of pulling through and getting themselves a win. Unfortunately, I had no idea that the game would be in -*--ing London this week, where Miami kicked some Raider ass. 
• Pittsburgh was an obvious choice again, and after four failed attempts to overcome a 4-point deficit with less than 2 minutes to go at the end of the game, I figured that TB would have one more loss. Something happened - I'm in, perhaps, too much shock to really investigate it - and Tampa Bay didn't lose. I still don't get it, but it apparently happened. 
• With Jacksonville at San Diego, I picked the Bolts and the Bolts won. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
• Atlanta is a consistently good team and Minnesota is a mixed bag, so I went with Atlanta (because I had no idea that they went 4-12 last year - oops). However, our Scandinavian friends prevailed in the end, which was far less disappointing than my previous wrong picks. 
• I learned that, despite the difference in current records, SF winning this week was not that much of an upset, but that game was certainly stressful. The 49ers consistently look like shit, but they are also capable of pulling off plays that end up looking like artwork. Some of those plays are half crap - a shit throw from Mr. Arm Tattoo that ends in a brilliant catch for a first down - and some are picture perfect. 
• I also underestimated Dallas this year, but I'm certainly not alone. It could be the Fort Worth magic, it could be that New Orleans isn't as good as it used to be, but I called the game before the half. This was another disappointment, but it wasn't very shocking.
• As it happens, Alex Smith went to the Kansas City Insinuation-that-Native-Americans-only-exist-in-the-past, which won't improve their ranking in my Ideal teams, but will make me more likely to pick them. They are playing New England, but in Kansas City, so I'm going to take a risk and predict a KC win.